A woman has been arrested after her four-year-old daughter drowned during a pool party in Florida while she drank beer and talked on her phone, according to a police report.
Rosette Pierrecius, 32, faces charges of child neglect causing great bodily harm in connection with the child’s death at the Kendall Ridge Apartment complex in Bradenton, police said.
She reportedly told law enforcement she was not a resident of the complex and was attending an after-hours neighborhood party Saturday night with guests that included family members, WWSB reports.
Surveillance video allegedly shows the child entering the pool without her mother noticing at 8:52 p.m. and becoming submerged about three minutes later, according to a police report obtained by The Independent.
Another adult saw the child underwater and pulled her out about 9:04 p.m., meaning the girl was underwater for about nine minutes, the report states. No one was performing CPR when the police arrived three minutes after receiving the 911 call, police said. Officers then started CPR and the girl was taken to the hospital, where she was later pronounced dead.
Pierrecius was arrested early on Mother’s Day. She allegedly told investigators that she had left her daughter under the supervision of two older children at the party while she went to the bathroom, the report states.
However, investigators said surveillance video contradicted her account and showed she was not supervising the child, instead walking around the pool deck and using her phone while the girl was in the water.
The mother told investigators she had drunk six beers and later recorded a blood alcohol level of 0.124 percent, police said.
“This case is a heartbreaking tragedy that has deeply affected our community. While nothing can take away from the loss of a child, we have a responsibility to hold individuals accountable when negligence puts innocent lives at risk. And in this scenario, the negligence resulted in the loss of a child’s life,” Bradenton Assistant Chief of Police Brian Thiers told The Independent in a statement.
Pierrecius is being detained as the State Attorney’s Office reviews the case and determines formal charges, Fox 13 reported Tuesday. She is scheduled to be arraigned June 26.
